Foxconn fined by Apple for 20% iPhone defect rate

[BladeVenom]

I never imagined they had such a high failure rate.

The agreement between Apple and its outsourced manufacturer allegedly states that a 90 percent quality rate is required (meaning only 1 out of 10 iPhones are allowed to be broken). However, Foxconn has only been able to achieve an 80 percent quality rating; therefore, they are having to refund Apple for all the sub-standard phones.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-iPhone-Foxconn-return-defects,22195.html


Title modified to be more accurate.
Moderator PM

 

[luv2liv]

this comment below that article is hilarious:
Foxconn should tell Apple "you're holding it wrong"

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that's a pretty bad failure rate. interesting what fanboism does, since if it was any other company it would have gone bankrupt by now.

They need to try to destress the work environment over there. Even tiny accurate asian hands can be shaky when the environment is poisoned, which causes blobs of solder to end up where you don't want them.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Speculation is that Apple caught this before it got sold to consumers. Also, the article states that Foxconn has to reimburse Apple for all of the defective models.

 

[swanysto]

Not really apple's fault, unless you blame them for choosing Foxconn to build their phones. Either way, the risk is all on Foxconn. Big companies are really good at putting the risk on their subcontractors, yet they reap all the rewards.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

How many of you guys work with core metrics of a manufacturing line? First pass yield? Pareto of failures, etc? I feel like news articles don't really know wtf they're talking about anyway.

Anyway, I'm about to go review some first pass yield data with the QE for the manufacturing line.

 

[TheStu]

The way I am reading this is that it is 20% before they leave the door. Foxconn was supposed to not exceed a 10% failure rate. This doesn't appear to be product that is hitting the customer's hands.

So, "20% of Foxconn's Work on iPhones is Defective" is a more appropriate title.

 

[MrX8503]

Foxconn has stated that the 5 is significantly harder to manufacture than the 4. So the failure rate has been pretty high. Unfortunately for Foxconn, that's money out of their pocket.

 

[bearxor]

Bait topic. These are phones from Foxconn that didn't pass Apple's Q&A. An interesting topic of discussion but thread title is very misleading.

 

[SlitheryDee]

This seems like a non-issue from the consumer's standpoint. What do you care how many bad iphones were thrown into the bin before they hit store shelves so long as they were caught before you bought one?

 

[Ravynmagi]

Kinda wish someone was around to throw 20% of Asus tablets in the garbage before releasing them to customers.

 

[bearxor]

Man, if that was in the US, I'd be dumpster diving.

Though I believe I heard Foxconn is just going to fix them.

 

[Zaap]

Sounds like a huge non-issue. Every model of phone likely has the exact same issues at the manufacturing stage. Unless you're one of those that believes Apple uses magic parts unique only to them.

 

[Mushkins]

This seems like a non-issue from the consumer's standpoint. What do you care how many bad iphones were thrown into the bin before they hit store shelves so long as they were caught before you bought one?

I disagree. If 20% of them *are* getting caught in QA, that means theres some serious problems with the manufacturing process. QA is not perfect, and the more defects there are total the higher the number of those phones that *do* have defects slip through the QA process and *do* end up in consumer hands.

There's no such thing as a perfect filter, and as a consumer i'd rather not have such a staggeringly high chance (comparatively speaking) to have something in my $600 gadget fail prematurely.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I disagree. If 20% of them *are* getting caught in QA, that means theres some serious problems with the manufacturing process. QA is not perfect, and the more defects there are total the higher the number of those phones that *do* have defects slip through the QA process and *do* end up in consumer hands.

There's no such thing as a perfect filter, and as a consumer i'd rather not have such a staggeringly high chance (comparatively speaking) to have something in my $600 gadget fail prematurely.

I guess we can't know for sure until the failure rate of end-user units is known. Consider this though. It is a possibility that Apple's quality control is so strenuous and comprehensive that they are flagging units that would have passed other manufacturer's testing. That might also produce a higher rate of "defects" from the factory while likely reducing the number of defective units that reach consumers at the same time.

 

[Phynaz]

Total flame bait title.

 

[Bateluer]

Dumb article, not like the 30% Xbox360 failure rates after it arrived in consumer hands.

 

[MotionMan]

Total flame bait title.

This.

They did not pass Apple's high standards.

Non-issue.

MotionMan

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wait, so this is 20% failure rate at the factory (failing QC), and not at the store? Still bad (for Apple/Foxconn) but not as bad as it makes it sound.

 

[MotionMan]

Wait, so this is 20% failure rate at the factory (failing QC), and not at the store? Still bad (for Apple/Foxconn) but not as bad as it makes it sound.

Exactly.

It is not even bad for Apple - just Foxconn who failed to live up to Apple's high standards.

MotionMan

 

[TheStu]

Dumb article, not like the 30% Xbox360 failure rates after it arrived in consumer hands.

Word, now that was something that legitimately a BIG problem. This? If they aren't even leaving the factory floor? Apple considers 10% to be acceptable losses, Foxconn failed to meet that metric. I don't even know why this is considered news other than that it has Foxconn and Apple in the same sentence.

If HTC or Toshiba or ANY of Foxconn's other clients had the same problem, do you think it would have spread around as much as this has?

 

[pm]

Modified the title to be more accurate so that we can get back on-topic after a bunch of posts talking about misleading titles.
Moderator PM

 

[QueBert]

Apple has way higher standards than just about every other company. I saw one of those Catleap monitors in person and it was really bad ass. And more than likely it was a panel that Apple rejected for not being good enough for an iMac. With Apple's standards I'm kinda shocked that the rate for iPhones isn't much higher than 20% to be honest.

 

[Mopetar]

It is not even bad for Apple - just Foxconn who failed to live up to Apple's high standards.

It's bad for Apple if they wanted to ship more to retailers, but are unable to due to shortages. They obviously include the defect rate into their calculations (otherwise why would they have set a 90% quality rating) but I doubt they expected it to be as large as it is.

 

[pandemonium]

My question is, if it was Foxconn's fault, why was the iPhone 5 the only outlying device to have such terrible quality issues recently? Conspiracy at Foxconn?

Quality requirements from Apple were already beyond the norm:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/06/workers-at-foxconns-zhengzhou-factory-strike/

So, if this is Foxconn QA's fault, why on earth would Apple allow Foxconn to not meet quality standards? Did they just hope the 5 million+ pre-ordered phone recipients would get lucky or not complain and return their devices?

http://blog.gsmarena.com/was-apple-aware-of-the-iphone-5-build-quality-issues/